VII – Return of the Krotons

The dead planet Onyakis is being plundered by the last survivors of the human race, and their leader, Commander Cobden, will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Already there are rumours of people who stand against him disappearing but when the Doctor and Charley side with those trying to expose Cobden, they discover something worse.

1 Comment

Styre
on May 7, 2016 at 9:35 PM

RETURN OF THE KROTONS

If there’s a word for Nicholas Briggs’s latest Doctor Who script, “Return of the Krotons,” it’s “traditional.” Far future setting, mysterious disappearance, the return of old monsters, and not an innovative or interesting concept on display for the entire running time. There are lots of continuity references, of course: besides the titular Krotons themselves, the Doctor talks extensively about the Ark (in Space), Charley mentions C’rizz in a moment of weakness, and, arising from that, more acknowledgment of the increasingly-ridiculous secrets Charley is keeping from the Doctor. So it’s a character story, right? Well, no. The supporting cast is entirely unmemorable, populated entirely with clichéd sci-fi mad scientists and resistance leaders — only the presence of the stellar Philip Madoc, a veteran of the original story, elevates proceedings through his talent alone. This helps with the general lack of interest.

Which brings me to my main question about this story: why bring back the Krotons at all? Sure, Briggs and Ian Brooker sound quite like their 1969 counterparts, but they weren’t very interesting “monsters” to begin with — and Briggs does absolutely nothing to make them any more intriguing. Yeah, there’s the idea of a human/Kroton hybrid, but you have to do something with that idea, not just exclaim dramatically that you can see an eyeball in its head.

None of this is to say that “Return of the Krotons” is bad, but it’s exactly the sort of story that you’d expect to get as a free subscriber bonus. If it seems like this is an incredibly brief review, fine — I’ve written over 150 of these things and there are only so many ways to describe an average, unmemorable Doctor Who story. But hey, Colin Baker’s great.